Chapter 5

Beth tiptoed through the dark room as quietly as she could. Sarah was still sleeping and she wanted to keep it that way until the last possible second. She was anxious, that much was obvious to her but she fought the urge to reach into her medicine cabinet for the little pill she knew would calm her head space.

After taking nearly two weeks off work to help Sarah through withdrawal, she figured it was about time to return to the station. Even though she'd just be riding the desk, she couldn't stay away from the place forever. She was worried about Sarah though, afraid that her sister wouldn't be able to handle being left to her own devices all day. Her mind was already in overdrive thinking up all the possible shit scenarios of the trouble her sister could get in. Her worst fear being a relapse – two weeks wasn't damn well long enough to ensure Sarah could fight the cravings she would surely experience.

She turned to wake her sister up before she left and noticed that Sarah was already wide awake and looking at her strangely.

"Was wonderin' how long you were just gonna stand there," she commented, the sleep still evident in her voice.

Beth shrugged off the observation and smiled down worriedly at her twin. "I'm leaving for work now."

Sarah nodded silently and sat up a little further, sensing Beth had more to say.

"Paul's already gone for the day too, so it's just you today. If you need anything though I left my work number on the fridge. Call me if you need anything, and I mean anything, Sar," she said sternly.

"Yeah, okay I will," Sarah agreed more to placate her sister than anything.

"If you have a craving and feel like you can't handle it you need to get in touch with me right away and I'll come home, okay? Also, do me a favour and just stay here for the day. There's plenty of food and you can watch movies or whatever, just don't leave the apartment."

"I won't okay, promise," Sarah reassured her, she felt guilty over the amount of worry she could see radiating through Beth's features.

As usual, Beth put the weight of everyone else's problems on her shoulders. Between her, Felix, and Sarah, Beth had always obviously been the responsible one and felt like it was her duty to carry Felix and Sarah through their troubled times. Although they were eternally grateful to their sister for her care and sacrifices, sometimes they wished that she would just leave them to deal with their shit alone. She worked herself far too hard for them sometimes and it was moments like this when Sarah realized how close her sister pushes herself to the edge for them.

"Okay," Beth nodded to herself. "I'm going then. I'll see you later, love you."

"Yeah, love you too," Sarah grumbled as she flopped back against the pillows, ready to get at least a couple more hours of sleep.

Beth was out the door moments later, forcing herself to focus on the drive to work the entire trip to stop herself from turning around. To her surprise the drive went quite quickly and before she knew it she was walking through the familiar doors of the police station. Before she even had time to register what was happening, Lieutenant Hardcastle was standing in front of her.

"Childs, in my office," he spoke gruffly and brushed passed her again, disappearing moments later through his office door.

She returned a smile and quick wave to Raj as she made her way across the room to her boss' office. She walked through without knocking, knowing he was expecting her to follow him in there anyway. Art was already sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk. He turned to see her enter and nodded stoically to which she returned the gesture.

"Have a seat, Beth," Hardcastle said and she stiffly dropped into the only remained chair in the room next to Art.

She looked half curious and half apprehensively at the older man across from her, having no idea what he wanted to talk to her about in her first minute back.

"How's your sister doing?" he asked casually, not caring that she was obviously confused over their meeting.

"Uh, she's doing better. Still recovering but seems to be getting better every day."

"Good. It's obvious that you care a great deal about her."

"Well yeah, Sir. She's my twin sister," Beth replied dumbly and furrowed her brow slightly at the path of their conversation. If he just wanted to talk about Sarah why was Art sitting with them?

"Still, that kind of loyalty can be hard to come by," he mused more so to himself than the other two. "How long have you been on desk duty, Childs?"

"A month and half now, Sir."

Hardcastle opened the top drawer of his desk and placed Beth's gun and holster on top. "You're done with it now, Childs. You're a good cop, we need you back on active duty."

Beth grinned widely and promptly stood up to shake his hand. "Thank you, Sir."

"No need to thank me. Art, Angie's gonna handle the Pouchy case solo from now on. You and Beth are back together and I want you two on the shooting in the west end from last night."

"Yes Sir," Art replied gruffly and followed Beth out of the office after she grabbed her weapon.

The partners stood next to each other outside the office, Beth practically overcome with happiness at being reinstated. She noticed Art looking at her strangely and smacked his bicep. "What?"

"Just still can't believe you have a twin you never told me about," he shrugged angrily. "I thought we were closer than that."

"Oh come off it, dipshit," she scoffed and smacked him again, harder this time. "Don't be such a drama queen, yeah? It's not like I know every detail of your life outside this place either. There's never been any reason for me to mention my brother and sister."

"Yeah, whatever," he grumbled. "You ready to finally hit the streets again?"

"I've been waiting forever for this," she said, easily shrugging on her holster and securing her gun in it. "Let's roll out man."

She was chomping at the bit to finally get back on a case and do some worthwhile police work. All of a sudden the day was looking up and she was thankful she resisted the urge to pop a few pills this morning. The only high she needed was the one she got from working a good case. It could take her mind off worrying about Sarah too, which would be a relief for both twins.

So far, so good. She had stayed in the house like Beth asked her, bored out of her bloody mind but still obedient. She had taken Beth's suggestions and ran with them, planting herself on the couch as soon as she woke up with as much food as she could find and a pile of DVDs.

Now, early afternoon she was starting to get restless. It wasn't in her nature to just sit around for so long doing nothing. Okay – scratch that; it wasn't her nature to do such a thing alone. Anyone who knows her would say she's about the laziest person on the planet. But being a recovering addict didn't exactly have her warm and fuzzy at the idea of being home alone with nothing to do. It's the quickest and easiest way for the mind to start to wander to other things, things that she needed to stay far away from for good.

Her strategy for warding off such thoughts? Junk food. She figured it wouldn't really matter if she shoveled the shit into her because doing coke had made her way too thin anyway, this would help balance her out again. Unfortunately for her, Beth was some fitness freak and didn't keep much junky options for her to eat. Her bag of chips was running low and she didn't know what would happen after that, an apple just didn't feel like it could compete against the temptation for drugs.

Sighing softly, she paused the movie and stood up. There was a convenience store only a couple blocks from the apartment, she could get there and back in fifteen minutes. She's in a good neighbourhood in the middle of the day, not like cocaine is going to just pop up in front of her during the trip. Beth wouldn't even have to know she left.

Sarah slipped on her shoes and shrugged on a sweater to protect her from the crisp late fall air. She noticed that her sister had left a twenty dollar bill on the counter, probably if she decided to order food for herself throughout the day. Bloody trusting, Sarah thought wryly. Beth hadn't been shy in her precaution taking with Sarah's withdrawal. Leaving a twenty laying out that she could easily use to buy some coke was awfully careless considering the measures she had previously taken to make sure Sarah kept clean.

Whatever, it made her task a hell of a lot easier now. She threw her hood up over her messy waves and swung the front door open. She made it only a few steps down the stairs when a harsh voice rang out and had her freezing mid stride.

"Going somewhere?"

Sarah looked to her right and saw Mrs S standing on the sidewalk looking angrily up at her. Fuck.

"Back inside, right now. You and I have some things to discuss."

Sarah grunted to herself but turned around anyway, figuring it was probably not the best idea to give her foster mother a mouth load of attitude after ten months of estrangement. She heard Siobhan following closely behind her and gritted her teeth at the sound of the front door slamming shut.

She stood rigid, waiting for the attack to start. Instead though, Siobhan remained silent across from her, eyes sweeping in an appraisal over her form.

"Well, now I know what Elizabeth was trying to keep from me," she scoffed bitterly and shook her head in disgust.

"Wha's that?" Sarah questioned gruffly.

"Oh don't play stupid, Sarah. How long with the drugs again, huh?"

Sarah cringed at being caught so easily. She had been hoping against all hopes that someway, somehow Siobhan would never find out she had turned back to coke. It would only make her quest to get Kira back even more impossible. She would be so thick in the clutches of S now that she wasn't sure if she had any hope of even seeing her daughter again.

"I asked you a question, Sarah."

"Since I bloody left, alright? Why the hell do you think I went?" she responded angrily, already sick of the judgmental look radiating from her foster mother.

"Unbelievable. How could you do that to Kira, to yourself? When the hell are you going to grow up and start being the mother she deserves?"

"I'm back aren't I, Siobhan? I'm gettin' clean, Beth and Fee are helping make sure I'm good."

"It is not your brother and sister's responsible to make sure you stay off drugs. You'd think after all the shit you put us through the first time around you'd have the good sense to stay far away from that lifestyle," she clucked with disapproval.

"I made a mistake, Siobhan! Bloody Christ, I'm sorry we're not all as fuckin' perfect as you are. I slipped up so I left because I didn't want Kira to watch me fall off the wagon," she yelled back angrily, a part of her desperately wanting S to see her vulnerability for a moment.

"You should have never been in a situation where you could make a mistake like that," Siobhan didn't budge.

Sarah threw her head back in a combination of downright irritation and exhaustion. She wasn't sure why she was even bothering to offer some semblance of an explanation to the older woman because it would never be accepted or understood. S believed what she believed and there would be no way Sarah could get her to see things differently. The second she failed to pick Kira up ten months ago was when Siobhan started forming her opinions of the situation and punishing Sarah.

No doubt she would try to continue her punishment full force now that Sarah was actually back in town. It didn't matter that the woman probably took every chance she got to make digs about Sarah's parenting in front of Kira – for Siobhan Sadler there was no greater pleasure than making Sarah's life as horrible as possible. At least, that's the way she's always seen it. Beth had defended their foster mother's actions many times over the years but Sarah would never accept the explanations.

"Whatever. I don't even know why I bother with you," Sarah grumbled and turned her back to the older woman, hoping to gain some semblance of control over her shaking body. Her anger was becoming overwhelming and she knew she needed to do everything possible to keep from exploding.

"Oh that's rich, love. Why you bother with me? I think you've got it the wrong way. For years I've been trying to get you on the right path and every time I turn around you've gotten into a bigger shit storm than the last!"

"Yeah, yeah I know. Why can't I be more like Beth, right? How many bloody times have I heard that one in my life?"

"I just wish you could see the damage you're doing to yourself and everyone else," Siobhan said, her voice laced with sadness that made Sarah want to gag. It was all some bullshit fake motherly care act.

"I'M BLOODY WELL TRYING TO FIX IT, SIOBHAN. Jesus Christ, that's what I'm tryin to tell you. I'm getting my shit together – for Kira."

S didn't seem at all phased by Sarah's dramatic voice raise and remained stock still. "You will not be going anywhere near Kira until I deem you fit. And there's no saying that such a time will ever come."

"Oh, piss off. You can't keep my own daughter from me."

"I can and I will. I've been her legal guardian since you disappeared and it will remain that way."

"Oh yeah? 'Cuz it's best for Kira?"

"Yes."

"Bullshit," Sarah balked in outrage. "You won't keep me away from her. You wouldn't do that to her."

"No," Siobhan agreed, "but I'd do it to, love. Clean up your act for good and we'll talk about you seeing Kira again. Until then, you will have no contact," she explained and her tone of voice made it clear the decision would stick.

The finality of the comment had them both realizing the conversation was finished. Siobhan offered Sarah a smile, full of taunt and triumph as interpreted by the punk. She made her way out of the apartment without another word.

Sarah stood eerily still in the moments after the door closed. The apartment was silent but she didn't notice – everything inside of her was screaming so blindly that she was sure her eardrums would burst. The onslaught of emotions was practically unbearable and the only ones she could actually identify in the moment were horrendous anger at her foster mother and sickening depression at the thought of being kept from her daughter.

She had known that retaliation would come from S, it was practically the textbook way to punish Sarah. She had anticipated it with all the same coldness it was delivered and still she was left feeling like she had been hit by a truck – completely blindsided by the sheer force the entire exchange hit her with.

She needed Kira. Kira needed her. Didn't S understand that she would never truly get better until she was reunited with her precious daughter? Kira is the one ray of light left in her life, the one person in the world that made her whole again. Not being able to see her? Well then her life didn't even have a purpose.

She ran a desperate hand through her wild locks and began pacing back and forth, a wild animal trapped inside the cage-like pristine apartment. There were a few dishes on the counter, leftover from earlier in the day. With one harsh motion, she swept them all off the surface and listened to the porcelain shatter against the nearby wall. The commotion had several family photos clambering off their hooks and into the mess of shards.

Breathing heavily, Sarah observed the mess she had made in only a fraction of a second. She could easily recognize herself in it. All the sharp, broken pieces resembled the shambles of her life. It was all too much. She needed a fix and she needed it now. It was the only thing that could help her catch her breath and stop her racing mind at this point. She reached blindly for the phone on the coffee table and hurriedly punched in the numbers she had memorized. She had a craving and there was one person she knew that could help fix that problem.